Matua community already Indian citizens, need no CAA certificate: Mamata Banerjee

"We have already accepted the Matua people as our citizens. The Matua community needs no certificate. They are insulted in the name of CAA," said Banerjee.

"Me as the CM saying they need no certificate," she asserted.

Banerjee's comment in the rally at Bangaon, the Lok Sabha seat of which went to the BJP's kitty in 2019, assumed significance as the Trinamool and BJP have been at the loggerheads over the new contentious CAA.

The CAA, which was enacted in January, 2020 by the BJP-led Centre, aims to grant citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Chritian, Buddhist, Parsi, Jain but not Muslim refugees who came to India from neighbouring Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan before 2015.

Though the CAA had triggered massive nationwide protests before the outbreak of Covid-19, BJP national president Jagat Prakash Nadda said the law will be implemented once the pandemic is over.

The same was resonated in the words of BJP national vice president from West Bengal and Banerjee's former right-hand man, Mukul Roy, who said the implementation of CAA will begin in January, 2021.

Banerjee also equated the BJP government's CAA law as a ploy to evict Bengalis, raising the statehood once again ahead of the crucial assembly polls in 2021. 

"The BJP wants to evict Bengali people from Bengal. We won't allow that," the feisty Trinamool chief said.